


In Parentheses

by PlainJaneEyre



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 07:50:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1502525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlainJaneEyre/pseuds/PlainJaneEyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft muses on Sherlock. <br/>(First Person)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Parentheses

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everybody! This is an odd little idea that I dreamed up one day. I'm not sure how much you'll like it (the format is a bit different), so please let me know if you want me to continue.

Best not to feel too much. Thinking is superior. 

Sometimes I question the soundness of this principle. But it's all I have left now. 

One Con: Difficulty identifying own emotions. Can so easily identify (i.e. manipulate) in others, but blank space over self. Empty room. 

"Let's play deduction." Sherlock's favorite game. (Don't feel anything about Sherlock, don't feel. Better to analyze emotions, safer.) List facts, come to conclusions. Like always.

Facts (or should we call them symptoms? Physical manifestations of emotion. Usually viewed as weaknesses, but integral components to arriving at this diagnosis.)

1\. Insomnia. (Have not slept in three days. 73 hours, 29 minutes. To be precise. Hallucinations common in 80% of the general population after 112 hours of sleep deprivation. Hardly part of "general" population, but can already see effects. Mind clouded, not functioning properly.)   
2\. Increased Pulse Rate (120, radial artery.)   
3\. Persistent (chronic) Headache (no discernible cause.)  
4\. Grinding Teeth (dentist informed me reason for the sore tooth: extensive and presumably unconscious teeth grinding. Uncommon of me not to notice.)  
5\. Desire for Cigarette (Want to feel black tar settle into lungs, inhale cloud of cancer-inducing smoke. Wouldn't mind a stiff drink either. Small jerk of understanding for Sherlock.) 

Conclusion  
Stress. 

Stress, however, is not an emotion. It's a physical occurrence, a pressure exerted on something. Too much stress and it'll shatter. 

But you don't feel the pressure as an emotion, only the shattering. The pressure is, after all, external. Shattering, however, comes from the inside. (Think of a breaking window. Pieces don't crush in, they explode out.) Laws of Thermodynamics: matter and energy dispersal. 

Am I shattering? Plausible. (Broken glass hurts others. I can't afford this.) 

So what is the internal, nagging force? Guilt. (Out, damned spot, out. Macbeth.) You were right, Sherlock. Government is a dirty business. And blood stains. 

John spits the words out, shaking with barely concealed anger and frustration. "And you have given him the perfect ammunition." 

Yes, John. I did more than hand him the ammunition. Gun locked and loaded. 

But you see, John, you've made one miscalculation. You detest me for placing this ammunition in Moriarty's eager, grasping hands. You have a right to be. Moriarty is the real sociopath here. (Sociopath: no longer a medical term. Antisocial personality disorder. You, at the very least, Dr. Watson, shouldn't have believed Sherlock when he told you that label. Should have seen it for it was: a defense mechanism of a hurt child.) Moriarty wants to see Sherlock ruined, wants to see him pained and alone. (Does he believe he will be able to have Sherlock then? He must be truly insane, if so.)

But he doesn't want him dead. What is a villain without his hero? Moriarty isn't the real danger here. I would quite happily hand Moriarty a gun aimed at Sherlock's head. He's far too obsessed to ever pull the trigger, as much as he may bluster. 

If you were aware of who I was really handing this ammunition to, you would do more than detest me. (Your hands would stop shaking, and you'd see the battlefield instead of this still, posh room. I can see the outline of a gun in your jacket.) 

I'm positioning this loaded gun against Sherlock's beautiful, curly hair, and wrapping his own fingers around the trigger. And I'm hoping (against all past evidence) that you are enough for him to want to keep on living. Moriarty is just playing a game, seeing if Sherlock is a clever enough playmate to get out of the trap. If he can get Sherlock to pretend to kill himself, it'll detach you, dearest John, from him. He believes you won't forgive Sherlock when he comes back. And then Moriarty will have Sherlock allllll to himself. 

But Moriarty is missing a piece. He's missing a piece because I'm covering half the chessboard, and he believes that only the parts he can see are real. And the piece he's missing is dangerous to us all. 

For years, my brother would jump at the chance to squeeze the trigger of a gun pointed at his own head. 

(Why do you think I got to the school so quickly when that cabbie offered my brother poison? Sherlock is threatened with murder practically everyday, and if I came every time some idiot points a gun at him, the British government would fall apart from neglect. It's only when the choice for self destruction is left in Sherlock's own hands that I worry.)

Can I be any clearer, John Watson? Sherlock's greatest danger is himself. And you are in charge of giving him enough to live for so that he fakes his death, instead of catapulting himself off the side of the building to embrace the darkness. But I cannot tell you this. You will not know for years if you have failed at this task. You cannot even know that you have this task.

I send the soldier in blind, for the impossible task of keeping Sherlock's heart beating. The most intelligent man in Europe (yes, me) is incapable of such a Herculean effort, but you must not fail. 

"John. I'm sorry." Please forgive me for making you do this. 

"Oh please," you say. So angry, so brave. Keep that anger, keep it to make my brother, my little brother, stay grounded. Keep him here with us.

"Tell him, would you." Tell him that I'm sorry that I can't fix it, can't fix him. 

I certainly feel now.

**Author's Note:**

> All quotes courtesy of http://www.planetclaire.org/quotes/sherlock/series-two/the-reichenbach-fall/#sthash.nsyaU8mP.dpuf


End file.
